Kinsta Managed Hosting Review: All Ecommerce Sites on WordPress Should Check Out This Hosting

Managed WordPress hosting is a somewhat new niche area in the hosting world. It's useful for people on the WordPress platform if you have limited knowledge or would rather leave the more technical tasks to the experts. I typically recommend managed hosting to those new to the whole hosting (and website) game, but ecommerce is a little different.

Since many ecommerce professionals have lots to do on a daily basis, the idea of worrying about hosting sounds silly. And that's what companies like Kinsta are trying to help out with. I want to complete a full Kinsta review, since the brand has done an amazing job with its managed WordPress hosting, and the extra performance, tools and assistance should potentially pay for itself when your customers start noticing the better experience.

Not only that, but Kinsta has recently revamped its entire interface–from the sales websites to the backend dashboard for users. Needless to say, it's an elegant makeover, with an extremely user-friendly layout and some innovative changes to make Kinsta more accessible to all ecommerce businesses.

One of those changes involves pricing (we'll outline that below, but there are now some plans that ecommerce startups and bloggers with smaller budgets can sink their teeth into).

So, keep reading to learn more about the Kinsta Hosting offerings, and take note of the unique features that might make your WooCommerce, or any type of WordPress site, run better.

What Do You Get From Kinsta Managed WordPress Hosting?

WordPress users in need of managed hosting are sure to marvel at the speed, efficiency and customer support from Kinsta.

It's all managed, so your time is spent elsewhere, and the dashboard is far cleaner than that of a traditional CPanel.

The majority of the features are covered in the next section, but it's worth noting some of the technical aspects of those tools for you to understand why Kinsta looks so intriguing.

For instance, you get:

A support team that's created WordPress plugins and themes in the past. These are full-time employees who have years of training and experience. No huge call centers with people who know little about WordPress.

Technology like Nginx, PHP 7, LXD containers and MariaDB so that your site is the fastest it's ever been.

A security network that constantly looks for and manages malware attacks, DDoS attacks and malicious code. You'll also have several options for SSL support including a free solution.

Kinsta Pricing

One of the more drastic changes to the Kinsta hosting model involves flexibility for smaller companies and a slightly more digestible plan structure (the plans have better names too). It used to be where Kinsta offered eight pricing plans, and the cheapest one was for $100 per month.

Now there's a Starter plan for only $30 per month.

Kinsta still has eight total pricing packages, some of which are made for smaller businesses, while others are for the behemoths of the ecommerce world. But the most interesting pricing comes from the new Starter and Pro plans, which open up high-speed hosting opportunities for everyone.

I used to say that those looking for inexpensive hosting should look elsewhere, but that's not the case anymore. Sure, $30 per month is more than the $3 to $5 range you can find at some discount hosts, but those shared servers often present risky environments for serious ecommerce businesses.

In addition, most successful ecommerce companies eventually need to scale up and go with a host that can not only support the traffic spikes, but also the regular database maintenance, security, and backups.

Regardless of the plan you opt for, you get the following features:

The ability to choose your own data center based on your region. Kinsta offers 13 regional data centers, all of them based on the Google Cloud Platform.

Free site migrations if you're moving a site over from a different host.

Expert support from WordPress pros.

Staging areas to develop and tweak your website without the entire world seeing your changes.

A platform that's known to speed up your website with help from Nginx, LXD containers, MariaDB, and PHP 7.

A powerful admin module that's much easier to manage than a typical CPanel.

Starter – $30 per month for one WordPress installation, 20,000 monthly visits, 3GB of SSD storage, 50GB on the free CDN, no white glove migrations, 14 days of backup retention, and two PHP workers per site.

Pro – $60 per month for two WordPress installations, 40,000 monthly visits, 6GB of SSD storage, 100GB on the free CDN, one white glove migration, 14 days of backup retention, two PHP workers per site, multisite support, site cloning, and a white-labeled cache plugin.

Business 1 – $100 per month for three WordPress installations, 100,000 monthly visits, 10GB of SSD storage, 200GB on the free CDN, everything from the previous plan, and SSH access.

Business 2 – $200 per month for 10 WordPress installations, 250,000 monthly visits, 20GB of SSD storage, 300GB on the free CDN, two white glove migrations, four PHP workers per site, and everything from the previous plan.

Business 3 – $300 per month for 20 WordPress installations, 400,000 monthly visits, 30GB of SSD storage, 500GB on the free CDN, three white glove migrations, 20 days of backup retention, four PHP workers per site, and everything from the previous plan.

Business 4 – $400 per month for 40 WordPress installations, 600,000 monthly visits, 40GB of SSD storage, 500GB on the free CDN, four white glove migrations, 20 days of backup retention, six PHP workers per site, and everything from the previous plan.

The SSD storage from the lower plans is more than enough to keep your performance strong. It's also clear that you get the highest quality support no matter which plan you choose.

Overall, the Starter and Pro plans are pretty exciting for ecommerce businesses with fewer monthly visits and limited budgets. Also, Kinsta still delivers the same excellent performance, and the powerful Business and Enterprise plans are still in the mix.

A Quick Note: The Kinsta pricing model used to run on a bandwidth-basis, but now it's visitor-based. Although there's probably not much difference for most users, this way seems easier for the average webmaster to visualize. All you have to do is check your website stats and see where you stand.

Kinsta Hosting Customer Support

Since Kinsta only sells managed plans, you gain access to direct expert support. So, it's someone who knows what they're doing and not reading from a script.

This comes in the form of ticket and chat support. The median ticket response time is three minutes, which is far better than the majority of hosts I've worked with.

You also get that coveted live chat module. There's nothing like being able to work on your computer then hearing the ping whenever the rep responds to you. As you may have realized by now, it's my favorite type of support.

As for online documentation, Kinsta has a blog for keeping you up-to-date on the company and any updates that come along. The knowledge base is where you'll complete most of your own research, since it lets you type in a keyword then see a list of articles that relate. Most of the time a knowledge base is all you need for a quick solution, but it's nice to have the speedy response time in your inbox or through the live chat.

Other than that, Kinsta includes backups and state-of-the-art security measures, rounding out the support and keeping you at ease at all times.

Who Should Consider Kinsta Managed WordPress Hosting?

There's a good chance Kinsta easily pays for itself with an online store on WordPress. Your customers will notice the difference and you get to spend more time working on product development, design, marketing and customer support.

The pricing used to look a little steep for startups, but now both small and mid-sized online businesses can benefit from the performance boost, and larger companies typically need some sort of expert management like this. The only time I wouldn't recommend Kinsta is if you weren't utilizing WordPress.

Kinsta is also highly specialized in hosting WooCommerce sites, keeping the revenue, SEO score, ROI and user experience up by making sure the sites are lightning fast all the time. Find more on kinsta.com/woocommerce-hosting/

If you have any questions about this Kinsta hosting review, or would like to talk about your Kinsta experience, leave a comment in the section below.

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